In an essay reposted recently on
Longform, Russell
argued that people would spend their leisure time doing active
things and not passive activities if they only worked fewer
hours.

Although TV hadn't been
invented yet in 1932, Russell foresaw the wastefulness of idle
time spent with television's predecessors — the movies and
radio.

"The
pleasures of urban populations have become mainly passive: seeing
cinemas, watching football matches, listening to the radio, and
so on," Russell said. "This results from the fact that their
active energies are fully taken up with work; if they had more
leisure, they would again enjoy pleasures in which they took an
active part."

Gallup reported last year that the average American workweek
had spiked to 47 hours, and that 18% of those surveyed worked
more than 60 hours a week.

Americans don't appear to be taking vacations to recharge,
either. A study commissioned this year by the US Travel
Association found American workers, on average, neglected to
use nearly five of their allotted vacation days, as the
Wall Street Journal reported.

Today, many overworked Americans spend their rare free time
watching television, possibly because their brains are too tired
for meaningful activities. Recent data from the Bureau of Labor
Statistics shows that Americans spend most of their time
sleeping, working, and watching TV,
as Business Insider's Andy Kiersz had reported.

According to Russell's logic, Americans would watch less TV if
they could have more time to relax. His essay also argued that
it's economically possible for people to work fewer hours.

For most of history, humans relied on hard work for a subsistence
livelihood, Russell wrote. But, he added, technological
advancements since the Industrial Revolution have made it
possible to produce more with much less work. World War I
demonstrated that point because victorious nations maintained
tremendous levels of production even though a vast amount of
their populations left productive occupations to help fight the
war, according to his essay.

But despite modern advances in machinery, we don't work fewer
hours because our culture stresses that hard work is an important
virtue, according to Russell. "In America men often work long
hours even when they are well off; such men, naturally, are
indignant at the idea of leisure for wage-earners, except as the
grim punishment of unemployment; in fact, they dislike leisure
even for their sons," he wrote.

Russell's antidote to this problem would be seen as dramatic in
2016; he proposed work
days lasting four hours rather than eight. That would maintain
adequate productivity without exhausting people from overwork to
the point where they spend their rare free time with lazy
activities, he argued.

As an example, Russell pointed to upper class members of society
with plenty of leisure time. Historically, they have used their
leisure time to make vital contributions to civilization through
scientific discoveries, artistic and literary endeavors, and
other influences over policy and social relations.

The original version of this post was written by former
Business Insider intern Corey Adwar.